


Two Beds

by M3zzaTh3M3z



Category: Forsaken - Fandom
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M3zzaTh3M3z/pseuds/M3zzaTh3M3z
Summary: Onyx didn't want her roommate. Then she didn't want her to go.





	Two Beds

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic immediately after finishing Forsaken by my friend Brittney! I didn't tell her I did this so I hope she doesn't mind but I loved Onyx so much I wanted to have a go at exploring her myself! I hope she isn't too OOC and also this is the first fic on this site for Forsake so I hope more will follow someday :)

They told Onyx this was her room now, but she could see immediately that they were lying. It was the first thing she noticed.

“Why are there two beds?” she asked, stopped in the doorway.

The nurse smiled back at her as she placed some toiletries on a bed. “You’ll be getting a roommate soon.”

“I don’t want one.”

The nurse only continued to smile. Onyx scowled and didn’t stop even when the nurse had left the room.

The second thing she noticed was there was no lock on the door. That was no good. She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the hollowness of her stomach. Stupid. He couldn’t hurt her here. Not physically at least.

She examined the stuff the nurse had left on the bed. Toothpaste, a toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner, deodorant – normal stuff any teenager would use.

Slowly and methodically, she unscrewed the lids of the shampoo and conditioner and just as calmly poured them out onto the bed. Then she squeezed out the toothpaste. If it hadn’t been roll-on deodorant she would have found a way to ruin that too. Not that it mattered. All her actions had done was to fill the room with the stench of mint and whatever sickly sweet scent they used in the hair products. It had also narrowed down her beds to a choice of one she supposed, but that didn’t matter too much. It wasn’t like she was planning to use it much.

***

They tried to give her a couple of roommates. She barely noticed. All attempts at conversation were shut down with caustic remarks. She stayed out of the room as long as possible. When she was forced to return she either watched TV with the volume obnoxiously high or lay facing the wall, pretending to be asleep. She didn’t know if they saw her pacing the room in the dark, fighting off the demons that followed exhaustion, but none of them said anything. Either they didn’t know or they didn’t care. Onyx didn’t mind which.

***

Dream-girl was different. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t like the others. She was still alive. She just didn’t know it. Onyx watched her with a curiosity she hadn’t felt for years and lashed out with a bitterness that was almost strong enough to shock her through the numbness of depression. It didn’t have much of an effect. This was new. The others she could make cry with a word – she had several times just for the hell of it – but here she was powerless. She hated being powerless. It was against all she tried to be.

Still, she wasn’t too upset when they became friends.

***

Night-time is different with someone else in the room. She’d known that before, of course. With a childhood like hers, how could she not? But she’d never thought a roommate would be able to change things so much. If they were both awake they’d whisper nonsense across the darkness and by the time her murmurs of “you awake, dream-girl?” were left unanswered she was almost too content to fear the tide of sleep rising inside. Just having soft breathing, a friendly living being only metres away, settled her mind. She started waking with her cheeks and pillow dry.

***

Annabeth. How long since a kind voice had formed that word? Or rather, that name. Names are more than mere words. They’re spells, forming you, creating you, reshaping you every time they’re spoken. _Onyx_ is a powerful incantation, so strong as to almost wipe away what was there before. It raises defences, creates impenetrable mysteries, shrouds it’s wearing in shadows so dark that nothing can get in, not even light. This spell wasn’t chosen at random and it served her well for years.

_Annabeth_ is not strong. It does not build walls and defences. It knocks them down. It invites the world in, opens the door to every ounce of pain and fear and hurt that meanders by. It welcomes warmth and kindness and smiles and laughter with equal joy. She used to think because it was weak it was useless. Now began to wonder if there’s a time for both.

***

Dream-girl left. That might have been okay, except she wasn’t dream-girl anymore. She was Skylar. This spell wasn’t defensive or welcoming. It was aggressive. It destroyed towers even as they rained down fire, it swarmed over impossibly high walls, it bounded across bottomless moats just to offer a hand to the scared, lonely girl stuck in the middle of it all. Skylar leaving was not okay.

Onyx didn’t ask if she was going to be assigned a new roommate, no matter how desperately Annabeth wanted to know. They both slunk back to the room, barely registering their moving feet. Upon opening the door to find the room suddenly too large and silent, Onyx scowled and kicked the door as Annabeth held back tears. They stood there for a long while without moving, but eventually, something kicked them back into action. Skylar had told Annabeth it was important to look after herself while they waited to hear Skylar’s mother’s verdict on their future and Annabeth didn’t want to disappoint her. Onyx wanted to scoff and declare it pointless to expect to ever see her again and find something else to ruin in the stupid room but went along with it anyway. It didn’t feel like action, moving only by following the motions ingrained by routine, but the scared, lonely girl managed to get ready for bed.

Lying in the dark was awful. The lamp didn’t make it much better. Light couldn’t replace the soft snores of her best friend or reform the missing contours in her bed.

Skylar’s bed. It was obvious now she noticed it. They hadn’t changed it yet, it was obvious from the hurried way it had been made, just like Skylar did every morning. Something of her still remained behind. She wasn’t yet fully erased.

Onyx knew it was stupid but Annabeth was desperate for comfort and so she crept across the pitch floor and slid into Skylar’s bed. It felt the same as the other bed, yet subtly altered. The indentation of the mattress, the position of the pillows and the lingering scent of something she could only identify as ‘Skylar’ all soothed her with their differentness that meant now, finally, the scared, lonely girl was no longer alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that was alright/understandable because I didn't really know where I was going with it but that was a lot of fun to write :) thank you Brittney for creating such great characters 
> 
> Comments and kudos make my day!


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